Sauvignon Blanc This grape variety was meant to take over from Chardonnay as the Yuppie drink. Often heavily disguised as Fume Blanc”, Sauvignon Blanc is a noble grape variety of unusually distinct varietal character. The best Australian examples taste distinctly grassy, often even more herbaceous than this. In addition there is a strong fruit character which can be likened to gooseberries and lichees, which together with the greenness mentioned makes a good Sauvignon Blanc a rather attractive prospect to neck at. Although quite voluminous in flavour, they are not terribly complex, and are often given a short periosd of contact with wood to gather more variety and complexity of flavour, even if just for a very short time. Those Sauvignon Blancs labelled `Fume Blanc’ often carry what I would describe as an overdose of wood character, reflecting a marketing-led trend that has told wine drinkers that unless heavily-wooded, a white wine is tasteless. The phrase `Fume Blanc’ is a strange misnomer that we have adopted from California, not France. Robert Mondavi coined it to describe the smoky flavour of his wood-aged Sauvignon Blanc wines, borrowing the French term `fume’ from the Loire Valley, where at the village of Pouilly the local wines made from Sauvignon Blanc are labelled `Pouilly Fume’. But the `fume’ in the name has nothing to do with wood – it is a soil-derived character resembling gunflint. So `Fume Blanc’ has come to mean wood-aged Sauvignon Blanc, but as it is not a varietal name it is therefore not subject to the labelling requirement that stipulates that for a wine to be named aftewr a grape variety it must contain at least a minumum of 80% of the variety in the blend. Thus the phenomenon that many Fume Blancs contain only a handful of Sauvignon Blanc in their chemistry and therefore fall into the highly contentious area of misleading labelling. The best Australian Sauvignon Blancs I have tried come from the Margaret River area of Western Australia, Coonawarra and the Mornington Peninsula ( Although the latter in miniscule quantities ). The major plantings in> Australia are in the MIA, the Riverlands and Central South Australia. A grape able to retain its varietal character quite wel in thewrmer areas, it will undoubtedly continue to be planted in Australia even in the forecasted hard timnes ahead. Semillon I have already had my gripe over the labelling of this variety on many Australian wines as `Riesling’ or `HUnter River Riesling’, so I can now just get on with what it tastes like. This presents a certain problem, for I find the flavour of Semillon distinctly hard to describe. It can be melon-like and fruity, with a touch of citrus – like young examples from the Hunter Valley; it can be toasty, buttered and spicy, like older wines from the same region, or it can be quite green ( not as herbaceous as Sauvignon Blanc ) and very citric, as found in central Victoria. Semillon does make some of the best dry table wines in Australia, especially when grown in the Hunter River area of New South Wales. It has found another use as well, as a major component of the current revolution in Australian botrytis-affected late-picked dessert wines, of which the De Bortoli Semillon Sauternes has been the best released to date and has deservedly recived the most publicity. It is one of the few white grape varieties which are genuinely suited to noble rot infection and the shrivelling and concentration of flavour it causes. Semillon is most widely planted in the MIA ( Griffith area ), the Hunter Valley, the Barossa Valley and the Riverlands in South Australia. It has been known to sport a `Madeira’ label in the Barossa Valley. Sultana (!?) The cynic in me would say to read the `Riesling’ section for notes on this grape variety. In 1986 more tonnes of Sultana were crushed for winemaking than for any other single grape variety, just nudging ahead of Gordo in the last vintage. Where does it go? Into the softpacks, the cheaper bottlings and heaven knows where. Why is it used? It is there and it is cheap. It also retains a good degree of acidity in warm to hot cliamtes, and its neutral flavour is very rarely repugnant. With its seedless grape it is very easy to make wine from and they are very rarely faulty as a result of disease problems in the vineyard. You have probably drunk more Sultana than you have eaten to date, so try not to be too alarmed, please.$ Traminer Australians planted quite a lot of Traminer until they decided they didn’t like it, and have spent the rest of the time trying to figure out what the Heck to do with it. It is the most pungent and spicy of all white varieties, and when made into a true varietla style can get oily, broad and even coarse in texture. Little wonder we don’t like the stuff, I hear you say. Obviously there are the exceptions, usually made in coooler areas where the coarseness and pungent nature of the variety are kept to a minumum, the resulting wines being floral, spicy and very elegant when young. Capel Vale, Seppelts Drumborg and Delatite come to mind. In Australia it is often called `Gewurztraminer’, after the name of the spiciest of the German clones of the variety ( `gewurz’ being German for `spicy’ ). In Germany the use of this name is regulated, in Australia it is not. Assume then, that the choice of name depends of the whim and taste of the winemaker and you won’t go far wrong. In any case, most Traminer grown in Australia is blended away ( often with Riesling ) to slightly sweet, flowery wines of nice character and flavour, if not complexity and real elegance. Verdelho The wine of the moment in WA, where excellent Verdlhos are made by a group of wineries either as straight varietals or in blends with Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc. The grape makes a full-bodied and full-flavoured dry white burgundy style with a rich glycerol-like smoothness that really comes out after a year or two in the bottle. It has a slightly flinty character, a greenish note and a tendency towards honeyed flavours as it develops in the bottle. A fine variety, usually affordable and worth the shot at. We look forward to the results of the considerable new plantings in the Hunter Valley.
